On this day last year, I lost my baby, Jacqueline. The emotions have been a real roller coaster, but now that it's exactly one yr to the day, I'm sad but not nearly as devastated as I feared I would be.

Somebody gave me this poem, and it moved me in a strange way, so I thought I'd pass it along:

WILD GEESE

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

"On this day last year, I lost my baby, Jacqueline. The emotions have been a real roller coaster, but now that it's exactly one yr to the day, I'm sad but not nearly as devastated as I feared I would be."

Lisa,

I'm so sorry for your loss. I'm approaching the one year mark as well and feel pretty much like you do. I've posted this before, but I'm looking forward to thinking about how much better I feel this year as opposed to last year when I was coping with the loss of Erik. I keep remembering how sad I was and how I'm not so sad this year. Praying that you'll continue to heal!

Thank you both for you kind thoughts. Therese, I was feeling very much like you, relieved that I've come so far with the grief, and I was feeling so incredibly thankful not to be ill like last year. So that's how I felt as the day approached, but then the night before the anniversary date I came down with the flu, so I was forced to lay in bed and feel sick. This of course brought back terrible memories of my condition the year before.

Overall, I'm relieved to pass the one year mark. I'm so happy that I'm still alive and that I have a chance to try again. I have a few friends who have just failed IVF. I see how difficult it is for them to adjust to not having a biological child of their own. So I am thankful that there's still that chance, but I feel I've also accepted the reality and risk of losing again. Not only do we mourn our loss, but we face the fear of future pregnancy, and then some of us may wonder the implications PE has for our overall health. I'd say that's a lot to deal with in one year! All of you have given me such strength to work through these issues. Thank you for your prayers and kind thoughts.
Lisa